1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving evaluating apparatus and a driving evaluation method for evaluating fuel-saving driving of a vehicle, and relates in particular to a driving evaluating apparatus and a driving evaluation method that can be used widely for various types of automobiles having different performances, and can evaluate driving quantitatively about ecological driving.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, environment-friendly fuel-saving driving (ecological driving or so-called eco-driving) has been asked for in driving of a vehicle such as an automobile, in view of global environment. For example, driving with repetition of abrupt acceleration and abrupt deceleration consumes a large amount of fuel, and increases an amount of exhaust gas; therefore, such driving is not favorable in terms of ecological driving.
In one technique, in response to enhanced ecological driving awareness, a driver is informed of whether the driving state corresponds to ecological driving. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-22505 discloses a technique of acquiring a state of acceleration/deceleration based on a vehicle speed, and displaying for a driver points of driving evaluation from which several points are subtracted in cases of abrupt acceleration or abrupt deceleration, which are against ecological driving.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-22505, merely an abstract driving state against ecological driving is defined, and a specific evaluation approach for ecological driving is not presented. Accordingly, the technique of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-22505 has a problem that quantitative evaluation of whether the driving state is ecological driving is not possible.
Although some automobiles evaluate driving based on a fuel consumption rate of their own, the fuel consumption rate is usually different for types of automobiles, and displacements of engines, for example. Accordingly, the approach of evaluating ecological driving based on a fuel consumption rate is not a versatile approach.